PEACE ORGANISATION AFTER
THE WAR :

A Review of Some Schemes
of Reconstruction.

BY

THE RIGHT HON. J. M. ROBERTSON, M.P.

WITH

AN INTRODUCTION

BY

THE RIGHT HON. THOMAS BURT, M.P.

International Arbitration League,

183, ST. STEPHEN'S HOUSE, WESTMINSTER, LONDON, S.W.
Price Twopence (post free, Id..

AN INTRODUCTION.

»<r^>»

I have been asked to write a few words of ^odu^on to Mr.
Robertson's pamphlet on " Peace Organisation After the War.
To me it would be a pleasure to be associated with my friend on
1™ fublect, but I cannot persuade myself « —
from me, or from anyone else, is needed. Mi.
remarkable among writers for the logic, clearness and farce w th
.vhich he states his views, and he may be trusted to maintain
and defend them against all comers if they are attacked. 1 nave
read the proofs of his article with care and with general agreement.

In some quarters there is much foolish impatience— if indeed
all impatience is not foolish-directed against those who venture
to suggest plans for dealing with after-war problems. Let us
finish the war " cry the impatient ones, " then it will be soon
enough to consider what we shall do afterwards." Certainly the
main thing is to end the war speedily and satisfactorily. But is
it not also of the utmost importance to seek means to prevent the
recurrence of such a world-wide cataclysm as that which is now
devastating the largest and most powerful nations of the earth?
If we cannot entirely abolish war we should assuredly strive to
the uttermost to narrow its bounds, and, as far as possible, to
mitigate its horrors.

We of the International Arbitration League and others have
for many years advocated arbitration, and to give effect to that
principle we have urged, as our American friends have urged, the
establishment of a High Court of Nations for the peaceful settle-
ment of international differences. Eecent events are supposed to
have discredited these methods. It is the fashion among shallow
critics to ridicule arbitration and to laugh cynically at Hague
Conferences, because, forsooth, they have not prevented the
outbreak of the most terrible war in the world's history. It
would be as irrational to cast ridicule on the judicial systems of
nations because they have not abolished all crime and black-
guardism. Arbitration has certainly prevented many wars. Do
not let us forget that for a hundred years Great Britain and our
kinsmen across the Atlantic have settled their disputes, some
of them most delicate and acute, by treaties of arbitration.

International organisation — the federation of the nations of the
world — is one of the great needs of the future. That is a

3

stupendous task. It is not easy to organise individuals, but to
organise nations is infinitely more difficult. When Tennyson
" dipped into the future " he foresaw the time when " the war-
drum would throb no longer, and the battle flags be furled, in
the Parliament of man, the federation of the world." That time
may be far off, but it is worth while to strive to bring it nearer.
If civilisation has to survive, if it has to be a verity, the vision of
the poet must become a grand reality.

The " League to Enforce Peace " has recently attracted much
attention, and has received influential support from leading states-
men on both sides of the Atlantic. We owe its inception to
America, a country which for a century has been in the van of
every movement for developing and perfecting international law.
Some of the best and most highly trained minds, legal and
other, of that great Eepublic are at the present time directing
their energies and their ingenuity to devise methods for tbe
peaceful settlement of international differences. Though tbe
League began in the United States, its foundations were laid
at the first Hague Conference.

A League to Enforce Peace is something of a novelty. Force
is frankly recognised as a part of the machinery to ensure the
security of nations. Tbe idea is that nations shall not stand aside
with folded arms in the presence of the aggressor, but that the
ruffian-nation shall be overpowered, placed in a strait-jacket,
and kept under control until sanity has returned and until he
has learnt better manners. This should appeal not only to the
peace-at-any-price man, if such there be, but also to the
war-at-any-price man, who certainly exists.

The fundamental principles on which the League is based may
be summarised in a few words: (1) That every people shall
determine its own sovereignty and control its own affairs ; (2)
that small States shall have the same rights of self-government
as the more powerful nations ; (3) that the world has the right to
be free from every . disturbance that has its origin in aggression
and the disregard of the rights of peoples and nations.

President Wilson, in addressing the League, delivered a
striking speech in which he made the following notable declara-
tion : " No nation can any longer remain neutral as against any
wilful disturbance of the peace of the world." Coming from a
man who has striven to the utmost of his power to maintain the
neutrality of his own great country the importance of such a state-
ment cannot be exaggerated. In the same speech he further

• ■ i nf Tuihlic risht must henceforth take
declared «' that the principle o f publ ic nght nationS)
precedence over the mdividual interests P
Ld that the nations of the world must n some way

to make them secure against violation.

The League beyond doubt has powerful ^
Mr Taft, a former President, is its chairman; Mi. Wilson as
ve have seen, as well as Mr. Hughes, the Republican candidate
for the Presidency, Mr. Roosevelt, and other prominent men
have strongly declared in its favour.

On this side of the Atlantic the League has already been
received with great approval by some of our most distinguished
statesmen. M. Briand has given it his blessing. In our own
country Viscount Grey, Lord Bryce, and others have spoken or
written in its favour, and its principle is embodied in Mr.
Asquith's declaration that " Britain is fighting for the public
law of Europe." Viscount Grey, in his memorable, inspiring
speech to the Foreign Press Association, after heartily com-
mending the League, appealed strongly to neutral nations, who
are less absorbed in the maelstrom of the war than are the
belligerents, to prepare the way " for some international
association, after this war is over, which shall do its part in
making peace secure in the future. " We should all do our utmost
to attain that great object.

THOMAS BURT.

PEACE ORGANISATION AFTER THE WAR.

§ i.

A useful service was rendered some time ago by Mr. E. W.
Tucker and the New York journal, " The Survey," in tabulating
" Twenty-two Constructive Programs for Peace and World
Organisation " in a chart, which has been re-issued this year by
the Neutral Conference for Continual Mediation at Stockholm.
The groups or conferences represented are : —

1. International Congress of Women at The Hague.

2. Central Organisation for a Durable Peace, Hague.

3. International Peace Bureau, Belgium.

4. World Peace Foundation, Boston.

5. Eighth Northern Peace Congress, Copenhagen.

6. General Swedish Peace Congress, Varberg.

7. Women's Peace Party, United States.

8. Emergency Federation of Peace, Chicago Branch.

9. League to Enforce Peace, American Branch.

10. New York Peace Society.

11. Bund " Neues Vaterland," Germany.

12. National Peace Council, Great Britain.

13. Union of Democratic Control, Great Britain.

14. Fabian Society, Great Britain.
• 15. Dutch Anti-War Council.

16. Swiss Committee for a Durable Peace.

17. American Socialist Party.

18. South German Social Democrats.

19. German and Austro-Hungarian Socialists, Vienna.

20. French General Confederation of Labour.

21. Secretary of Union of International Associations, Brussels.

22. " The Independent," New York.

Strictly, the last two do not fully enter into the scheme of the
chart ; but their proposals are quite schematic enough to be entitled
to consideration on their merits ; and the same may be said of a
number of individual publications in different countries, which
probably represent as considerable sections of public opinion as
are covered by a number of the group-pronouncements. It will
probably not be disputed that all alike speak only for rather small
minorities ; but as this means for certain only that the great
majority in all countries have not yet committed themselves, no
conclusion as to the practicability of any one scheme is reason-
ably to be grounded on the largeness or smallness of the organisa-
tion behind it. For the same reason, individual pronouncements
are as well worth weighing as those of groups. Among those which
I have read are : —

1. " A Council of the Nations." By 0. F. Maclagan. Garden
City Press, Letehworth.

2. " The League of Nations Society." Garden City Press,

^"roposals for the Avoidance of Wars." Privately
circulated. With prefatory note by Lord Bryce

4 "The League to Enforce Peace." Speech by Mr. 1 alt.

5. "The European Anarchy." By G. Lowes Dxckmson.
Allen and Unwin.

6. " After the War." By G. Lowes Dickinson. Emeld

7. " European International Belations." By J. A. Murray
Macdonald. Fisher Unwin.

8. " The Two Boads." By H. E. Hyde. King and Son.

9. " Towards International Government." By J. A. Hobson.
Allen and Unwin.

10. " Proposals for a League of Peace." By Aneurm
Williams, M.P.

11. " Shall this War End German Militarism? " By Norman
Angell. U.D.C.

12. " The Morrow of the War." U.D.C.

13. " Britain's Great Opportunity." By Charles E. Innes.
Birmingham Printers, Limited.

This body of propaganda may be taken to present a sufficiently
general view of the present movement of constructive thought
among peace-lovers throughout the world, apart from Asia; and
the object of the present brief survey is to attempt an estimate*
of the practical possibilities as distinguished from the ideals
expounded.

§ 2.

The conception most nearly common to all the schemes is one
of international concert for the preservation of peace (presumably)
by force— a proposal long familiar to peace-lovers and likely now
to be accepted by a far larger body of opinion than was ever
secured for it in the past. Among the 22 bodies of our first list
the following formulate it thus : —

4. European concert with representative council.

5. An alliance between the civilised nations for peace, free
trade, etc., and in connection with this, the establishment of a
world Parliament.

6. The union of civilised nations for peace ; the creation of a
universal Parliament ; the establishment of a powerful inter-
national executive.

7. Concert of nations.

8. The same.

11. Development of international organisation.

12. Eormation of a permanent Congress of Nations, composed
of delegates appointed by the Parliaments.

7

13. Establishment of a concert of the Powers.

15. Co-operation between States.

16. International organisation. Arbitration.

17. International congress with legislative and administrative
powers over international affairs, with permanent committees in
place of secret diplomacy.

18. Confederacy of all European States. Alliance of all against
aggressor. International Parliaments and permanent international
committees " in place of diplomacy."

20. Federation of nations.

21. International Parliament with two Houses, the lower
composed of delegates from the various Parliaments ; upper of
delegates from the international associations " representing the
fundamental social forces."

22. A periodical [international] assembly of the nations in the
league to make all rules, " to become law unless vetoed by a
nation within a stated period."

In addition to these specific proposals for international organi-
sation we have these more or less practical equivalents: —

1. Permanent international court of justice to settle all
justiciable questions.

2. A permanent court of international justice.

9. All justiciable questions to be submitted to a judicial
tribunal.

14. International high court for decision of justiciable issues
(one member from each of eight great Powers ; seven from all the
lesser Powers). International Council to legislate subject to
ratification by the States.

19. Development of international arbitration courts.

Equally general is the agreement of the independent publicists.
The main element of difference on the face of the case is as to
whether the international organisation shall or shall not coerce
either its own members or outsiders who persist m refusing
arbitration in a national quarrel. In addition to this there is the
serious difficulty involved in the phrase " justiciable questions,"
which seems to leave open an indefinite number of casus belli, to
be left to the nations to fight upon as in the past. In this Mr.
Lowes Dickinson acquiesces without making clear his principle of
discrimination. Yet another problem not visibly provided for is
the question whether the British Self-Governing Dominions shall
be represented separately or not.

Finally, there emerges the greatest difficulty of all: Shall the
Central Powers, Bulgaria, and what may be left of Turkey be, in
the first instance, invited or admitted into the League or Union?

8

§ 3.

Ail of the problems before us may perhaps be best approached
bv'askmg'he^question, What is likely to be
of international co-operation immediately after the W ar .

To which we may answer : —

a The common objection to " secret diplomacy " (a phrase to
be discussed later) would seem to be in part met at once by the
continuance, for peace purposes, of the existing Entente of the
nine Powers: Bussia, France, Britain, Belgium, Koumama,
Serbia, Montenegro, Portugal, Japan.

6. Into that Entente would presumably be welcomed all the
Powers now neutral which were ready to enter.

c The general peace principle of such an expanded Entente or
League would presumably be that every member agreed 1 to
submit every question involving war to arbitration, and (2) to
combine forces, upon an agreed-on scale, to resist any aggressor
within or without the League.

This is already a great measure of systematic provision for the
world's peace; but I incline to believe that the nations in general
are really ready for it. So far as I have been able to ascertain,
public opinion among the European neutrals is broadly in favour
of such an arrangement. And it should be noted that, though an
agreement to use force against an aggressor where necessary seems
rather essential, a simple trade boycott would in most cases be
likely to suffice to coerce any Power, or even a group of two or
three. The Dutch Anti- War Council, which has circulated a set of
three questions, the first two relating to the future activity of the
Hague Conference, and the third putting the issue of the inter-
national use of force against aggressors, has received fewer assents
to the last than to the others, some of the objectors (for instance,
Miss Ellen Key, Sweden) holding that such a procedure is
" desirable but, alas, not possible yet." On the other hand, Mr.
Maclagan, in his pamphlet, " A Council of the Nations,"
stipulates that the League in resisting an aggressor shall not
invade his territory, though it may attack his ships and aircraft
outside of his three-mile limit. At the same time, Mr. Maclagan
would enforce indemnities, which he thinks — possibly with justice
— could be extorted by economic pressure.

There arise here, however, two difficulties. (1) Why should
it be pre-determined that no aggressor shall ever be mulcted in
territory? (2) Supposing that at some future time Germany, after
accumulating submarines and food supplies, should commence a
submarine war against British commerce, it might be a long time
before she could be paralysed by economic pressure ; and in the
meantime, for lack of a land attack on German territory with
adequate forces, the British food supply might be disastrously
curtailed. It will be seen, I think, that the question is more
complicated than Mr. Maclagan thinks. Mr. Lowes Dickinson

9

and some, if not all, of his colleagues support the principle of the
use of force, as does Mr. Hobson ; and this, I think, is by far the
preponderant view .

The most serious element of dissent is the proposition put by
Mr. Taffc on behalf of the American Branch of the League to
Enforce Peace, that if after full discussion " a nation still thinks
that it must vindicate its rights by war we do not attempt in this
plan to prevent it by force." Such a policy leaves a great gap
in the machinery of future peace preservation ; and it is to be
hoped that the principle of enforcement will be adopted. As
one who deprecated that policy in the past, when formulated
with an eye to a limited Alliance, and in particular to a mere
League of the English- Speaking Peoples, I would now urge that
a really broad basis would remove the main ground for objection,
and that the present war has given a decisive proof of the need
for such a provision.

§ 4.

We now come to the proposals for Keduction of Armaments, as
to which there is as much agreement among peace-lovers as on
the question of international control, but for which the opinion of
the world in general is probably not so ripe. Here, however, there
is every reason to hope for agreement throughout the Entente. In
the first place, most of the Entente Powers must have some
reduction of armaments, even with reference to their pre-war
burdens. Kussia and France alike need that for purposes of
industrial recuperation ; and the demand that Britain shall after
the war maintain a conscript Army on the Continental scale,
in addition to maintaining a preponderant Navy, is put forward
only by people who have never calculated the economic possi-
bilities. Even before the war, such a burden would have been
ruinous: added to a national debt of four or more thousand
millions, it would mean simple economic collapse.

Some difficulty, perhaps, may be found in obtaining assent even
to our maintenance of a preponderant Navy, which in the present
posture of international affairs is simply vital to us ; and the surest
way to secure agreement on that head is to return to something
like the pre-war JEooting as regards land power. A Britain with a
small Army cannot be considered a danger to any of the Entente
Powers, or to any neutral who may join their alliance for peace
purposes.

A rational basis for a League of Peace would be a general
restriction of land armaments to the needs of the League as a
whole to protect any or all of its members. The figures of one
soldier per 100 or 1,000 inhabitants have been suggested; but it
is obvious that regard must be had to naval as well as to land
power ; and that the quotas of the members of the League must
be calculated with regard to the total number of entrants.

10

On the other hand, it seems to me practically essential to any-
thing like security that the Central Powers should as a preliminary
be forced to reduce their armaments to a size which shall leave
them no longer a deadly danger to Europe ; and that any breach
of the agreement by them shall be a casus belli for the League
against them. They have been the most unscrupulous and
systematic aggressors in the modern world; and it is against
the danger from their side that a League of Peace is in the first
instance necessary. The great trouble is that precisely at the
point where German aggression is most dangerous to our own
country— submarine war — secret preparation is most easy ; and
it is on that score that we are bound both to maintain a relatively
strong Navy and to call for a policy of defensive union by land on
the part of the Entente. And such a policy is indeed as important
for several neutrals as for ourselves.

Given agreement on these heads, it may be found necessary to
adjust the question of land armaments in a spirit of compromise.
Different States may claim different degrees of necessity for land
armaments. But that there will be an all-round reduction of
armaments, even from the pre-war standard, I take to be certain.

More serious, perhaps, is the problem as to the entrance of the
Central Powers into a general League of Peace immediately after
the war. On this Mr. Dickinson and Mr. Hobson insist as a
sine qua non : we cannot, they say, have complete security unless
all the present belligerents are included. My own answer is that
I do not look tor such complete security in my lifetime, however
that might be protracted. I cannot conceive that Europe will be
out of, all danger from the German cultus of militarism and
domination until there has been time for a cultural reversal of
the political religion which has been developed in Germany during
whole generations. Most of the arguments advanced in favour of
an immediate admission of the Central Powers to a League of
Peace based on the Entente seem to me to prove the very opposite
of what they aim at. We are told, for instance, that ninety-nine
Germans and Austro-Hungarians out of a hundred regard them-
selves as having waged a purely defensive war, and honestly
believe the Allies to be the real aggressors. I cannot imagine a
stronger argument against an alliance with them. Even their
attitude to treaties is not a clearer disability. I cannot conceive,
further, how, holding such beliefs, they can sincerely join such an
alliance, and if they proposed it I should regard the proposal as
part of a policy of treachery.

If, indeed, there were to follow upon the war a real democratic
revolution in Germany, involving the overthrow of the present
dynasty and oligarchy, it would be difficult to refuse an appeal,
backed by the nation as a whole, for a peaceful alliance. But
it is idle to discuss such a contingency until it arises ; the more so

1 1

as there is not the slightest overt prospect of it. The stringent
systematic cultus of a century and a-half is not conceivably to be
undone in a few years. It will be lucky if in a generation the ideals
now absolutely predominant in Germany have been superseded
by those of international equality and fraternity.

Mr. Hobson's position, as I understand him, is that modern
German policy is a product of Csesarism and bureaucracy, and
does not represent the spirit of the people. I readily agree that
the " German spirit " as we have it is a made thing, and may
in time be unmade. But the made thing will last till it is unmade";
and the German people at this moment, by the avowal of many
who deprecate anti-German animus, is educated to the ideal of
its educators. The assumption that it can collectively make an
ethical somersault and become immediately a loyal member of
a League of Peace is for me unthinkable. Nations do not and
cannot make lightning changes of that kind. To say " cannot
is not to say that they must be ostracised because they have
been miseducated. It is merely to say that generations of mis-
education create a colossal national fact ; and that the rest of
us must face the fact.

Many of those who either explicitly or implicitly advocate the
immediate inclusion of the Central Powers in a League of Peace
appear to me to make a quite erroneous assumption in their use
of the terms "diplomacy" and "secret diplomacy." They
appear to take it for granted that " diplomatists " are always
and inevitably warmongers, and " peoples " always pacific and
non-aggressive. This is really an unhistorical conception. " Secret
diplomacy " has a hundred times prevented wars. Open popular
agitation has many times precipitated them ; the American war
against Spain was so brought about. Spontaneous belligerency
is a normal feature of tribal life ; and I know of no organised
nation that ever became thoroughly non-aggressive until it had
been compelled to abandon aggressive ideals. That Germany
may be so compelled in time I think quite likely. But that at
the outbreak of this war the vast mass of the population in
Germany, Austria, and Hungary were enthusiastically belligerent
is certain ; and it is equally certain that the German mass have
delighted in the sinking of passenger ships and the slaying of
non-combatants by Zeppelin raids, to say nothing of their denial
or dismissal of the facts as to the massacres in Belgium and
Armenia.

These things being so, it may perhaps occur to those who
crave for the immediate inclusion of the Central Powers in a
League of Peace with the Entente Powers that even if their ideal
be as admirable as they think it, they cannot rationally expect
to realise it in the face of the obviously predominant feeling
throughout the countries of the Entente. No war in modern
history ever evolved so much national hate as this has done ;
because no war on any similar scale was ever so completely and
passionately endorsed by all the nations involved. In the old

12

wars against Louis XIV. there was no comparable growth of
hatred ; even in the Napoleonic wars there was always an expecta-
tion of ultimate alliance with the anti-Napoleonic element m
France, though Prussian hatred against France in general was
proportionate to past Prussian humiliation, which had duly fol-
lowed upon Prussian interference in French affairs. With the
mass of Germans hating " England " as they avowedly do ; and
the mass of Britons feeling as they do about German crime, is
there any practical use in planning a fraternal relation with
them as soon as the war is over? It will be hard enough to
prevent a stupid policy of "trade war" which will lastingly
cripple ourselves.

In the face of such a situation, the ingenious scheme formulated
by Mr. Hyde in his " Two Roads " seems to me simply Utopian.
Mr. Hyde outgoes most of the schemers of international organisa-
tion for peace to the extent of planning for an International
Military Force, under the control of an International Government,
which alone can permit its employment anywhere. Under this
system troops of the various nationalities will be distributed non-
nationally — British and French and Russian troops in Germany,
and German and other foreign troops in Britain. It seems sufficient
to point out that no nation will consent to such a system in our
day. And, seeing that Mr. Hyde stands upon a fiscal platform
of the crudest tariff ism, it seems hardly likely that he has
accurately foreseen the drift of the future.

§ 6.

A less thorny but still a difficult question is the form of Inter-
national Council to be set up by the League of Peace. Such a
Council seems eminently desirable ; but it cannot speedily become
anything deseribable as an International Parliament. I shall
be thankful to see constituted in my time an International Council
of Conciliation and Arbitration, or two Councils for these pur-
poses. If the Republics of North and South America will join,
the peace of the world would be as far secured as can reasonably
be hoped for in our day. But the entrance of the United States
may not be so facile as some optimists suppose. Mr. Aneurin
Williams argues that it would at once secure America against
that European intervention which is vetoed by the Monroe
Doctrine ; but if America enters the League the States will be
under the same restriction against aggression as rules the
European Powers. They could not be allowed to join in a
European intervention without accepting the principle of a
European League intervention to guard one American State
against the aggression of another. The real argument for the
entrance of the United States into a General League of Peace,
it seems to me, is that such a League would put American peace
on a much higher and securer basis than is afforded by the Monroe
Doctrine.

13

The great thing is to secure the first step — the adhesion of
neutrals in general to the League. To obstruct that by pre-
liminary debate as to the constitution of the machinery of con-
ciliation and arbitration would be disastrous ; and it would be
still more so to stipulate at the outset for an International
Parliament or Congress for which the nations are not at all
ready. It is significant that a " Confederacy of all European
States " and " International Parliaments " are proposed by the
South German Socialists, the great majority of whom describe
this war, forced on Europe by Austria and Germany, as a war
of defence. In view, finally, of the general practice of the nations,
it seems idle to propose to make Eree Trade part of the basis of
any League for Peace.

The evolution of the world towards universal peace will have to
proceed, in the first instance, through the machinery of the
actually existing Governments. Professed pacifists who merely
vilify all that machinery, and call for its supersession by a new
machine, are doing little to promote their ideal. Vilification
of diplomatists is only too easily met by disparagement of
pacifists ; and those who talk confidently of the infallible working
of an entirely new international machinery of " parliamentary "
status invite disparagement. A large stock of patience is as
necessary to pacifists as to " professional politicians."

§ 7.

I am not disposed to complicate this summary survey by dis-
cussing the " terms of peace " to be imposed at the close of the
war ; but I have actually indicated what seems to me one essential
safeguard, and I feel bound to notice two conflicting lines of
argument in that connection, both posited in the name of peace
policy On the one hand we have Mr. Charles E. Innes, m his
pamphlet " Britain's Great Opportunity to Kill Militarism and
to Secure Permanent Peace : The First Step," urging the imposi-
tion of a new constitution on Germany ; and on the other hand
we have a certain number of demands that no territory shah be
alienated save by consent of a plebiscite of its population. Both
positions seem to me untenable. ,

In the first place, it is no business of ours— of the Entente s—
to impose any kind of constitution on Germany. Germany s
constitution is Germany's business. In the second place, a con-
stitution imposed on a defeated country by the victors would be
guaranteed impermanent by the act of imposition, lo speak ot
such a constitution as a " gift " or "boon to Ge^any is
merely to evade the fact that the gift would be hated Proposing
such a " gift " on the one hand, Mr. Innes on the other appeals
to deprecate the exaction of either indemnity or territory , c* ; the
score that such a policy " will not produce the .condition «t U, £
which shall make war impossible." Those who can believe that
Germans will be made at once grateful and pacific by P™«
them a constitution for which they do not ask, may make nse of

14

such an argument against compelling them to make compensation
for the stupendous destruction they have caused ; but it can
make no appeal to the possessors of a normal sense of justice.
To propose to leave Belgium and Serbia without indemnity on
the score that to exact one will make Germans rancorous is
surely to take up the weakest of positions, to say nothing of the
implicit condonation of German action. Germans in general are
at this moment as full of the fiercest rancour as even they can
be ; they can certainly be no less rancorous when they are finally
forced to yield ; and if there be a minority who are still unde-
veloped in that regard, but who will become rabid if Germany is
made to pay for her misdeeds, their ethical standard is really
not such as need concern us.

It is necessary to stress this point, for the pacifist argument
in some hands incurs the danger of falling into a new kind of
immoralism. The fallacy of " doing evil that good may come "
is familiar; but the policy of "no punishment lest you incense "
has the seductiveness of an apparent combination of utilitarianism
and magnanimity. Now, mankind cannot yet afford to dispense
with the primary instinct of justice ; and those who in effect say,
" Lest it should seem vindictive, let us exact no penalty for the
sin against Serbia and Belgium," are dispensing with one vital
moral instinct without putting in action any other. France and
Kussia in this matter have a case of their own, which our peace
formalists ignore. It is always the other people who are to forgive
and forgo in order to prevent future bad blood. He who forgives
and forgoes for himself is acting morally ; he who argues that
another, deeply wronged, must forgive and forgo in order that
we may all be comfortable afterwards, is putting comfort above
rectitude ; and all the while is not really calculating very care-
fully about comfort.

The non-retaliation policy is very temperately urged by the
Swiss Committee who publish " The Principles of a Durable
Peace,' their position being that the taking of Alsace-Lorraine
in 1871 was a sowing of dragon's teeth, and that such an operation
ought not to be repeated. They further point out that the Powers
of the Entente, at the outset of the war, denied having gone to
war for conquest ; and they gently insinuate that to take any
territory at the finish is to falsify that announcement. But this
is hardly ingenuous. To say: " We are not the aggressors, we
desired no conquest, we strove to avoid the war," is not to say:
" Whatever the burden laid upon us, whatever the crimes of the
aggressors, we shall never take any compensation." Messrs.
Nippold, Wiedmer- Stern, and Trosch^the signatories of the Swiss
Committee's pamphlet, will perhaps pardon some of us in Britain
for asking whether they regard all the belligerents as equallv
guilty, and whether such a point of view has anything to do
with the fact that they themselves are of German race ?

But even if we try the issue solely by the test of future utilities,
we must go a little further than do those whocrv : "No annexation',

15

lest there be German resentment." Are Germans the only
people whose resentment is to count ? To say nothing of the fact
that the war of 1870 was deliberately engineered by Germany,
and that the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine was acclaimed with
ecstasy by practically all Germany, it is an odd process of reason-
ing to condemn the act and then conclude: " But, once done,
it must not be undone." In 1870 the then small party of German
Socialists made an honourable and memorable protest against the
annexation, a protest for which Bebel and the elder Liebknecht
suffered two years' imprisonment in fortresses. They predicted
that the annexation would one day lead to a war with Eussia,
and would bring on Germany ever-increasing military burdens.
Their policy has been strictly fulfilled. Are we then now to say
that Alsace-Lorraine, which has always remained French at heart,
is to be left in German hands for fear of future consequences?
France made no war for its recovery ; but when the war is forced
on her is she to be asked by us to stay her hand? There are
French feelings and Belgian feelings as well as German. When
professing to have regard solely to future contingencies, why not
take account of t^e feelings of the mass of the peoples of the
Entente in the contingency of Germany going undiminished out
of the inferno she has brought upon mankind? And what about
the kind of feeling that will be developed in Germany if men
there can say : "All Europe could not take Silesia from Frederick
after he had annexed it ; all Europe cannot even now take back
any territory from us." If we are to weigh consequences in one
direction, let us, in the name of decent concern for equity and
prudence, weigh all the others also.

No reader of this paper, I presume, will dispute that a victorious
Germany would certainly annex territory on the largest possible
scale, and extort the hugest indemnities she could wring from her
victims. If there is a German minority which professes not to
know this, it is not one with which it would be profitable to
argue.

As to plebiscites of territories to be annexed, they would cer-
tainly be pronounced hypocritical formalities ; for no vote for
annexation would be admitted by the defeated party to have been
honestly secured. To claim an overruling right for the newcomers
into annexed territory as against their victims, and to argue that
no German must be" transferred or dispossessed, in face of the
fact that substantially all Germans are doing their utmost to
dispossess other peopie, is again to juggle with a humanitarian
formula. It was fair to argue in 1870 that the people of Alsace-
Lorraine, having had no effective part in causing the war, ought
not to have been made to suffer annexation. But the pro-
Germans in Alsace have no equivalent case to-day. All the
German parties— Socialist, Conservative, Catholic, National
Liberal — have endorsed the war by immense majorities ; all would
have gleefully applauded the annexation of further French terri-
tory; and none, therefore, is in a position to say: " You ought

16

not to coerce me now that we have failed." To give them the
benefit of the formula of 1870 is to put a premium upon hypocrisy.
Small, honest minorities, I fear, may suffer; that is part of the
curse of war, invoked by the vast German majority, but 1 doubt
whether the few German Socialists in Alsace who happen to have
opposed and hated the war would feel very seriously wronged if
thev were transferred to the French flag.

Certainly it is not to be pretended that the infliction of heavy
penalties upon Germany and Austria and Turkey— for the last
are on the same footing, though most of our pacifists say very
little about them— will leave a resigned Germandom. But neither
would any other course do so ; and it is surely past dispute that an
undefeated and undiminished Germany will be the supreme
danger to European peace. In short, to be content with arguing
that" the one thing to be considered is the expediency of leaving
no bad blood on the German side of things is simply to close
one's eyes to nine-tenths of the problem. In the words of Conrad's
ship captain, you cannot " get behind the weather " by relying
on a formula. ° No man is secured from fallacy by merely feeling
benevolent. When I find that good men who are concerned about
not punishing Germany are quite undisturbed about any dis-
memberment and annexation of Turkey, I grow involuntarily
sceptical about their ethical basis. The people of Turkey, to all
appearance, were incomparably less willing to be in this war
than those of Germany ; but almost nobody suggests plebiscites
in their interest. Their feelings and their future resentments
arouse practically no concern — ostensibly because they have a
" guilty past." What then of Germany's?

Pacifists will be in no position to censure statesmen if they take
shorter and narrower views than do wise statesmen. There is
an ideal of justice as well as an ideal of pacification ; and that,
too, demands to be pacified. Nemesis cannot be evicted from
the nature of things to save the feelings of guilty nations any
more than to save the feelings of guilty individuals. And this
is substantially the answer that seems to me to be called for by
the pamphlet" of Mr. Norman Angell, which, for the rest, so
largely runs to repelling proposals that no Government has made
or is likely to make. It is really not necessary to tell us that we
cannot " annihilate " a nation of 60,000,000. The great merit
of Mr. Norman Angell 's past work for peace lay in his appeal
to men's commonsense ; • and the present war is the most
stupendous vindication of his thesis that war does not pay.
Those who argue as if he had been contending that no nation
should ever resist an aggression are merely demonstrating their
own lack of understanding. But Mr. Angell 's line of argument
during the war seems to me to exhibit a failure to apply to the
problem the same rational method that he applied to the problem
of war in times of peace. Hence, among other things, my sense
of a need for the present allocution.

Co-operative Printing Society Ltd., Tudor Street, N<jw Bridge Street, London, E.C.